John introduced the story of his father by illustrating with a map the connections that Van had with South Wales, Scotland and Prague as well as many other countries later in his career as a diplomat. The slide showing his picture, the Westminster Green Plaque commemorating the SOE HQ in Baker Street and also the Insignia of the SOE. (Special Operations Executive) prepared us for the wartime story and we were also shown a much later picture particularly for those who might remember Van in Hartfield in his late years with his great grandson Oliver.
Ernest van Maurik was born in the south east of England to a Dutch father and an English mother who had refused to speak Dutch which had decided the country where they were to live and bring up children! His father brought his family cigar business to the UK.
At 13 Van was sent to Lancing College where as a popular pupil and later head of house he gained his shortened name that stuck with him for a lifetime. Unfortunately, his father’s cigar business was suffering badly from conditions at the time and there was no money to send Van to university.
Instead Van was sent to a contact in Germany in 1935 where he saw the growth of the Nazis and did not like what he saw. However, he did learn excellent German and French that were to stand him in good stead later. Returning to London he got a job selling tea but also joined the Artists Rifles that became the founding regiment of the SAS.
On the outbreak of war, he moved to the Wiltshire Regiment and after a small arms course became involved in the SOE where he learnt sabotage and assassination techniques. Doubtless because he showed promise he was sent up to Arisaig in Scotland where he learnt more sophisticated techniques such as blowing up trains and also trained other operatives including some Czech soldiers who were to feature later in his war. At this time no-one knew what they were being trained for but they all had a good time!
Van worked for the head of SOE and knew a number of people who were to become famous but he also met a lady called Winifred Hay who, as a member of FANY, acted as a driver and later as his secretary.
Clearly Van was a man of action and we were told of various exploits which he survived. such as getting agents into Malta. Finally, he got his real wish and was parachuted into France in 1944 to support the Resistance meeting several prominent members including the Englishman, Richard Heslop who went under the code name Xavier. Working with the Maquis from Switzerland he organised an airdrop of arms and equipment for them and worked closely with British agents staying in France until the end of the war when he was ordered into Berlin to help repatriate British citizens.
At the end of the war he received the military OBE, married Win and joined the Diplomatic Service as a rather special diplomat on the basis of his background. The couple were first sent to Egypt and when they returned to the UK John was born. Moscow came next where attempts were made to compromise him. Even when Win was pushing John in his pram she was grabbed by a man saying that he was a rich Russian and she should come away with him! She walked away! Back at their flat soon after, they looked out of their window and saw a hot air balloon in the sky with Stalin’s face painted on it and all lit up. As a joke they called their maid and said, ‘look out of the window, God is in his heaven.’ The maid screamed with laughter at the joke and then realising that the flat was probably bugged, stopped and ran out of the room!
They left, returning to London where sister Gillian was born. When she was only 4.1/2 months and John was 4.1/2 years they were sent to Berlin. John recalls the complete devastation everywhere and going into the garden next door where he was able to pick up a machine gun bandolier complete with bullets – which he was not allowed to keep!
Back to the UK, then to Buenos Aires. Back to the UK and then to Copenhagen. Whilst there he was asked where he would like to go for his last posting. He said that whilst in Buenos Aires he learnt Spanish so would like to go somewhere to speak Spanish again – so they sent him to Brazil – where they speak Portuguese! (Laughter) Van said “the Foreign Office don’t understand ‘overseas’ do they?”
Not very long after they returned to the UK Win fell ill and died very prematurely. Whilst Van was still coming to terms with his terrible loss he received a phone call from Vera Atkins the secretary to Maurice Buckmaster, a flamboyant character who may have been the model for Miss Moneypenny of James Bond fame! She said that there was a remembrance service arranged for Xavier in France and he should go. Despite his protestations that he was not ready having so recently lost Win, Vera said that it was exactly what he needed so he went as part of the healing process.
At the service he saw a man in army boots who told him on being questioned about the boots that they were dropped from a plane in 1944 along with an agent. When Van told him that he was that agent he was embraced and taken to see a woman in a silk dress that had been made from his parachute!
He also met Xavier’s two sons who were amazed to hear people shouting tributes to their father whose subsequent career had not been very successful. “Was he really a hero” they asked Van to which Van said in no uncertain terms that he was which made their day. Van met Marius Roche, the man who had guided him with his torch and also the son of the head of the local Resistance who had been killed by the Gestapo.
When John and his family went back to the Jura area with Van they met Marius Roche and were taken to the Ferme de la Montagne – Farm in the Mountain – where, with tears in his eyes, he recounted the story of his escape across a field in which his twin had been killed. We were shown a picture of the family with Marius Roche and his children. The relationship with Marius Roche blossomed and helped the family for a long time. They also met Pierre Mercier who had founded the Museum of the Resistance and he took them to see the exhibits which included some of the weapons and amazingly, the jumpsuit that had been worn by Van when he parachuted in!
On a visit 2 years ago, John & Sheila were taken up the mountain to a ceremony held at the Monument to the Resistance in the hills and here they met one of the original Resistance fighters and were shown the field into which Van had parachuted.
A number of things developed from the relationship with Marius Roche who had realised that Van had not been recognised for his work with the Maquis. De Gaulle had restricted the number of available medals which were handed out in alphabetical order and ran out at the letter N! Marius was instrumental in persuading the French to present Van with the Legion d’Honneur at his club in London.
John returned to the wartime story in which the Czech men that Van had trained in Scotland were given the task of assassinating the Nazi Heydrich who had been responsible for crushing any resistance in Czechoslovakia and became known as the “Butcher of Prague”.
It was thought that Heydrich had been responsible for the killing of at least 3000 people and was a key architect of the Holocaust and was most likely to be the successor to Hitler.
When the operation finally took place there was a problem with a sten gun that jammed but Heidrich was wounded and died later of blood poisoning. The two Czech soldiers escaped but were trapped in a church crypt which the Germans flooded and after 6 hours, knowing they were doomed they committed suicide. Worse, much worse was to come with a terrifying reprisal in which the whole village of Lidice where the soldiers had been waiting for their chance, was obliterated from the face of the earth. All the men were lined up and shot and all the women and children were sent to a concentration camp.
A 1943 British propaganda film based on this operation called The Silent Village was made in a small village in west Wales called Cwmgiedd, with a similarity to the mining village of Lidice, re-enacted the story. The film, calling for solidarity among miners faced with the German threat to freedom, was instrumental in forging enduringly strong relationships between Czech and Welsh miners, in particular. Van, who saw the film carried with him a terrible conscience because he had trained those soldiers who precipitated the reprisal resulting in the deaths of 173 men and boys over 16 and 300 women and children.
Time moves on and John and Sheila spent increasing amounts of time in a family property in Wales which turned out to be the same village and they got to know people who had taken part in the film. Although Lidice had been wiped from the face of the earth one tree survived and recently some seeds from this tree have been planted in Cwmgiedd as a symbol of continuity and hope for the future.
Van died in 2012, father, grandfather and great grandfather, much loved.
